Why the hell not, Magruder didn't spend energy wondering. Chamoun was the choice because he wasn't looking too deeply into things. Naivete wasn't the most unlikely thing to keep you alive in a situation like this.
Finally the climbing stopped and the retainer's buckled shoes clopped on a floor of polished red stone until a columned door was reached. There the pasty man displayed the flourish which was probably his only real skill, opening the door and bowing low and announcing, "The Nev Hettekkers m'ser Michael Chamoun, captain of the Detfish, and his excellency Chance Magruder, Minister of the Nev Hettek Bureau of Trade and Tariffs."
Still bent low, the servant gestured them forward.
Magruder could see Chamoun draw a deep breath as they entered the Boregy reception hall, or study or whatever it was. More red stone, white-veined; black and white marble as well, statues and mantle and columns, all setting off a huge gilt table desk up yet more stairs.
Like a damned courtroom, or a governor's palace.
Airs to beat the band, these Boregys had—and trade balances to back 'em up.
Desk lamps and wall lamps, electrics shaded by eggshell-thin stone and cloth, and even a chandelier .. . and under that, a black-haired man with a fierce, down-turned mustache and coal eyes to match, dressed like a wedding present in brocade and velvet pantaloons: Vega Boregy, Chamoun's future father-in-law, if all went well.
"Gentlemen," said Boregy, coming around the desk with long strides. "I've been expecting you. Your office, Minister Magruder, was at pains to make sure I was." Boregy came to the head of the stairs.
But not down the stairs. They climbed the dais to take his outstretched hand, Magruder finally thankful for the lace shirt and cuffs and the velvet and the silk he was wearing.
He'd played high-toned games before. He took Vega Boregy's jeweled fingers in his and met a forceful squeeze with one more forceful, then let go before test became threat.
Mondragon hooked up with this house? Magruder said to Boregy, "Then my office also sent the credentials and official exploratory on the matter of your marriageable daughter?" His eyes slid to Chamoun, who was in his turn taking Boregy's proffered hand.
"Indeed," Boregy said and inclined his head toward Chamoun, who seemed to have lost the power of speech.
Say something, boy! Any damn thing.
And that was what Chamoun said: "Glad to meet you, ser. It's been a long voyage up here, the Detfish's first. She's our new flagship, you know. Maybe you'll come see her?"
Diction, passable. Don't slip. Magruder was as near to praying as he could manage. No river-talk, Det-man. We need to prove you're classy enough for this bunch. It wasn't going to be easy.
Vega Boregy called for chairs and wine, "refreshments," without answering either question directly.
Servants trained to near-invisibility turned up, soundlessly gliding over the floors with gold and silver service.
They all sat, Vega behind his desk, backlit. Just a bit too much light shining in the visitors' eyes. Nice touch, power-broker. Magruder leaned back in his velvet-stuffed chair and put his hands on its gilt arms, carved like whales. The chair's back pushed the revolver he carried against his spine. The pressure was comforting.
Vega told the servants to leave the wine and go and that wasn't, apparently, normal procedure.
Then he picked up his glass and Magruder followed suit, Chamoun one beat behind.
"A toast," offered Vega Boregy, "to a possible merger—and marriage—of unlimited potential."
Slick bastard, he hadn't said squat: "possible; potential." Just show me Tom Mondragon, and I'm out of here, Magruder proposed silently. But he couldn't say that. This wasn't that kind of situation, or that kind of man. All innuendo and oblique fencing, on the other side of that table.
What can I get out of you, Customs man? Vega Boregy wanted to know. Magruder was prepared for that. He reached slowly, with his left hand, into his breast pocket and came out with a fold of documents bearing Nev Hettek's Trade and Tariffs seal. Leaning forward, he said, "This contains the Bureau's proposed easements, projected tax rates, what we feel is a fair arrangement to all concerned. Considering that this would be the first official merger across state lines since the Fon administration took power, we've left sufficient room for your own people to emend or amend specifics." In other words, buddy, your kid marries ours, and you're a dual citizen, or at least your trading ventures are treated like you are—better than your uncle was before Fon kicked the Boregy office out for consorting with Mondragons. You get special privileges up the ass, is what you get, more perks than any of your canal-rat buddies. And we get a permanent ear to the door of everything worth knowing that's talked about in Merovingen-above's privy councils, because we expect Chamoun to be treated like one of your own sons—maybe better.
Vega Boregy reached very slowly for the document, his coal-black eyes resting first on Magruder, then on Chamoun. Magruder could almost hear the hiss as heat met cold when that gaze came back to his and Boregy finally took the document.
"Cheese, gentlemen? Fruit? It will take me a few moments to look this over."
There was eagerness there, Magruder thought.
Whatever Chamoun thought, the young Sword slid down in his chair, drinking fine wine like beer in a tavern, slugging it down.
Magruder fixed on the mirror over the mantle, in which their tableau was reflected. He could see only the back of Vega Boregy's long black-haired head, the white neck, the shoulders rounded from too many of these meetings under burning electrics too late into the night. As on similar occasions, ignoring all else with a skill that made it inoffensive, Vega Boregy sat still and read.
Mike Chamoun's reflection was no less troubling: the premature gray in his hair was the most distinguishing feature Chamoun had, something to recommend him besides youth, size, and health. Under thirty, free of physical defect, with a dark Det-man's tan and green eyes to lend breeding to a mongrel face of uncertain provenance. Attractive, perhaps, if that meant anything to this endeavor. An honest face, square forehead and flaring jaws; nose a trifle long, lips as thin on a mouth too wide; folds and hollows from tension and weathered all over from the wind—no aristocrat's face, by any stretch. But a body fine enough, long limbs and delicate hands that startled because everywhere else, muscle fleshed him out: stamp of honest work, not a good thing here. But heir to a shipping house: that was.
Next to Magruder, Chamoun was slight for his height, spindly, somehow inconsequential and brief. But Magruder had been through a revolution and survived with everything his people had had before, intact. Magruder was a creature of balance, coming into middle age without concern for its marks on him. Privation might be read by the Boregys as dissipation, something they understood. The lines around his narrow, colorless eyes didn't need to be explained; the eyes themselves had faded in harsh sunlight to a no-color gray; punctuation marks framed his tight mouth and the sardonic twist at its corners could be controlled—when he had to. If he'd been what he pretended, the weight he carried would be fat, unless he was vain beyond measure. His big hands were scarred from fire (it looked enough like freckles); his neck was broad from years of weighty helmets; his hairline was receding, the hair above once reddish, now straw and dirty blond and white.
It struck him, studying the mirror's reflection, that Chamoun could have been his son, if he'd bedded a fine-boned, dark-skinned river-girl when he'd been in his early teens.
But Magruder was married to the Sword, and that would show if he ever had to take his clothes off, here. Maps on him, a white line here, a patch of keloid there—his souvenirs. More than the hardness in his face, excusable because rich men and powerful men, as well as violent men, needed that, his body under all this silk and velvet might play him false.
But only if the Boregys could see beyond the profit in the offer he was making. Gold had a way of blinding men. And a lot of sweat in Nev Hettek had gone into making sure that the offer was dazzling enough to do the job, without being suspicious.
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Chamoun ate cheese and crackers and brushed crumbs from his fancy pants. Disciplined enough—he didn't look to Magruder for help or reassurance directly, only let a tentative smile cross his reflection in the mirror.
Finally, Boregy looked up and asked, "Have you seen my daughter, then, Captain Chamoun? Or is this generous offer based only on mercantile considerations?"
Magruder wanted to intervene, interrupt the boy before the Sword lost everything.
But Michael Chamoun said, "I'm looking at her father, aren't I? We were told she was your daughter, as well as your wife's."
Magruder's hand slid toward his spine, every inch of him ready for all hell to break loose there and then. A shout, guards, being thrown ignominiously out the water gate....
Three breaths of silence, and then Vega Boregy laughed a hearty, cultured laugh. And said, "I like you, Chamoun. It's not imperative, but it's a help. Cassie's my blood daughter, yes. You'll know that when you meet her—she's a mind of her own, I'm afraid."
"And half of Merovingen paying her court," Magruder eased in, deflecting Boregy's attention. "But the dowry's substantial, we think. And the merger historic. The first step toward better relations between our governments must be at the mercantile level. Surely your daughter's a patriot."
Boregy didn't quite grimace. "I'll not force the issue with my daughter—a three year marriage is no small thing—and an Adventist—but I'll tell you both—this is most tempting. Captain Chamoun," Vega Boregy leaned forward, turning his wine glass absently, "I must ask a personal question."
Magruder's hand was still in his belt.
Chamoun leaned forward also, as if he and Boregy were courting one another instead of trying to get Vega's daughter contracted. "Ask, m'ser."
"Would you be willing to convert—to make your home here, with us in this house? Otherwise, communications and coordination would be so cumber- some as to drain profit from the venture tie. A tie of convenience is out of the question."
"Convert?" Chamoun frowned. "Live in Merovingen?"
"In Boregy House. Bring your ships, base your activities here—become devout—it's the only way I'll be able to gain concessions from the Kalugins to match those you've gotten from Karl Fon. They'll be nervous. There is some current tension, you must be aware."
"Must be aware," Retribution's heart! But Boregy had taken the bait and Magruder didn't dare let the boy jerk the line too hard and lose this spiny, canny fish. "We expected some such proposal, and Customs—" The slip was purposeful, letting Boregy know that Minister Magruder could deliver all he promised. "—that is, uh, Tariffs and Taxes is prepared to smooth the way for such an unprecedented move."
A Nev Hettekker base in Merovingen is what it will be, old fool with diamonds in your eyes. A Sword base. A tech funnel is what you want, I know it and you know it. To get it, make the marriage, set up the Chamoun Company Main Office, and we'll give you all the electrics you can eat.
But you won't be eating 'em long. And you're going to give me Tom Mondragon first, and then Mikhail, Tatiana, or Anastasi Kalugin, whoever succeeds to the governorship.
"Fine. Propitious, in fact," said Boregy with enough caution there that Magruder knew the man was weighing the dangers against the gains. "As I say, it's up to Captain Chamoun and Cassie. Perhaps, though you already have invitations to the Festival Ball, you'll stay at Boregy House tonight and tomorrow night as well?"
"We've got to leave the morning after the Governor's Ball," Magruder said.
At the same time, Chamoun said, "We'd be honored."
Before Magruder could drive home his point, Vega Boregy, stroking his moustache, asked Chamoun, "Captain, do you believe in love at first sight? If you do, and my daughter does, we might announce the wedding—and your conversion—at Kalugin's party, give the right people something more pleasant to think about than Anastasi's assumption of the advocate militiar's post."
And he winked, having just come one step toward treason, to prove that he was a reasonable man, to prove that his heart was in the right place (his pocketbook) and to let both Nev Hettekkers know that he, Vega Boregy, was a man of the world who was willing to hear—and voice—valid criticism of his governing family as long as the patois was mannered and the company safe.
Magruder raised his wine: "A toast, then, to a Festival Eve such as Merovingen has never seen."
The governor's bash was going to be that, with or without the announcement of Cassiopeia Boregy's betrothal to Captain Michael Chamoun, young lion of Nev Hettek shipping.
Dinner was really going to be weird, Cassie thought as she hunted through her jewelbox for a triple-strand choker of pearls to go with her crepe de chine blouse.
Daddy was smug as a ratter with a bellyful, off on an unscheduled trip to the Signeury with some Nev Hettekker named Magruder to "see about setting up a Nev Hettek trading mission here in Merovingen. You'll entertain our other Nev Hettekker guest, my dear, in the Blue Room—a private supper."
"Oh, Daddy!" She'd had plans to go out; there was a party. At the party there was to be avante garde music, poetry; all her friends were going. "I have plans!"
"Surely you can include our young guest in them. He's not more than five or six years older than you, and a stranger, here for the Ball. If you get on, perhaps it will be the start of something... possibly he'd suit as an escort tomorrow night." "Daddy!" she'd said again, aghast at the implications. Cassie was one of the most sought after young women in Merovingen-above; the Ball was a place to dance with every boy trying to make a score. Though none of them had a chance to get their sweaty hands into her blouse, or their pimply cheeks against hers.
Then Vega said gravely, "Sit down, dear. We must talk." She'd flopped on her bed and her father had pulled her dressing table's chair close, turning it round and straddling it.
Cold had gripped her. Cassie knew her father. He'd found out about the herbs she'd been smoking with her friends, or about her secret comings and goings in the dead of night, or about. ...
"Cassie, this young man from Nev Hettek is a riverboat captain. A ship owner, heir to a rising company."
"Oh, you don't have to tell me to beware, Daddy. I'm not loose like—" Don't tell him what he may not know; her friend Rika was pregnant against her family's wishes and even she couldn't figure out by whom. When she started to show, Kika would be forbidden to see her uptown friends, or to give parties, unless Kika got it fixed. And Kika's parties, like the one tonight, were the most sophisticated in Merovingen-above. Then she thought about what her father had said: a riverboat captain—a man, not a boy. A "young man," as her father had said—young by Daddy's standards. But a man, not a boy—six years older. No pimples then, no sweaty palms and glassy eyes after one kiss. An Adventist. But a moneyed riverboat captain sounded so romantic, so ... grown up. Kika would be green with envy. Cassie resolved on the spot to bring Daddy's exotic houseguest to Kika's party if she had to let him put his hand in her blouse to get him there.
"Yes, Daddy, go on. I'm listening," she finished smoothly.
"This man, Captain Michael Chamoun is his name, will be staying with us until after the 24th Eve Ball."
"I know; you told me already."
"Don't be impatient, dear. He's come down the Det with a business proposition that could be very lucrative, very good for the Boregys—and our contacts."
Boring, boring. Business was boring. She tried to concentrate on the image of a dashing, dark-tanned riverboat captain, a Det-man who'd fought pirates and had the deep-running Det's mysterious currents in his eyes. "I've agreed to be nice to him, polite, a perfect lady. I'll take him to the party," she told her father.
"Good, because the business proposition concerns you, in a way—Captain Chamoun is here to sue for your hand in a three-year marriage, and his offer is too rich to ignore."
"I—" Fingers twisting in her lap, she'd panicked. Unable to speak, she just gazed at her father. What did he want her to say? Half the high-town families had already come sniffing around her,
looking for an alliance. "He's Adventist!"
"He's willing to convert so that's not important." Vega leaned his chin on the back of her delicate, lacquered chair so that his mustache drooped. "What's important is that, if you fancy one another, we move to solidify the arrangement."
"The arrangement? Don't you think I should have some say in—'
"Cassie, I asked you to listen. Possibly, this will be the most important two days of your life. A merger with a growing Nev Hettek shipping house is not simply profitable. There is power to be gained. Information to be gained. But you must want the young man. Captain Chamoun is no child. He will know if you act out of duty. You must not. Any marriage is serious business. You must decide. If you do, we'll announce it at the Ball. If you choose to decline, the house will survive it. If you were not my own daughter, I would not be so fair, with so much at stake. But you are..."
On and on it had gone. Daddy had explained the boring politics of it all, promised that she'd not have to leave Merovingen, that Captain Chamoun would move into Boregy and live here with her. Any issue would be Boregy, under the Boregy name. And proper Revenantist. Her uncle in the College would put College approval on it.
She clung to that promise, buffeted by conflicting emotions. How her mother would hate it if Cassie made such a powerful marriage. Mother had other children by other men; it had been Mother's money, Mother's status, Mother's connections which had mattered in the early days of her parents' association. She knew because Mother reminded her whenever possible. And Mother favored her sons.
Cassie loved her father. She understood what he was asking, what was at stake for him. She was her father's blood daughter. Her father would be able to tell her Yakunin mother where to get off, if Captain Chamoun was what Daddy said he was.
If the Chamoun family could do for the Boregys what the Nev Hettekker from Customs said that they could.
So dinner was terrifying: would she like him, would he like her, was he as mysterious and romantic as Daddy had said?